We managed to eventually prize ourselves away from Edgar and Anne and hit the road. We were heading straight for the beach. Our first stop along the coast was Guaymas and it was only 200 miles away but the GPS was telling us it was going to take 4 hours! We scoffed and said we will easily be there by lunch as in Canada and America you can easily cover 300 miles in 4 hours (out of town obviously)…this was our first mistake!
We took the toll road which means we were stopped to pay at a toll booth maybe 5 times on the way. Mexico is also extremely keen on the TOPE (said TOW-Pay) method of speed control! Tope’s are similar to speed bumps BUT at least 10 times more serious. You actually have to stop to roll over them or you WILL loose either your whole front axel or the underneath of your vehicle! If you did hit one at speed you would write your car off completely!
Their favourite tricks with these topes are rather pesky too…here are a few!
*A sign will warn you a mile before they are there so you have forgotten about it when you hit it.
*A sign will tell you there are topes in 100m and you will crawl along for a mile to find there isn’t one!
*The locals put their own topes down in the shadows of trees that hide them…and they don’t tell you they are there!
*Some places the locals have dug them up…just leaving a HUGE cavity in the road…we call it a negative tope!
So aside from topes being huge, dangerous and generally hidden, they do have their advantages in some places. Driving through a village for example at a tope where you have to slow to a stand still you can have your windscreen washed, buy your groceries and donate to charity all from the comfort of your driving chair! The locals line the edges of the topes (handy as you see them coming that way) with their wares. Alex bought a bag of dried prawns from one lady…see the video! They smell like cat food and he has been banned from eating them in the ‘house’. We have been offered fruit, chickens, tortillas, fish…all sorts!
Anyway, these topes are a massive contributor to the time it takes to get anywhere!
You also do get stopped every now and again by the ‘policia federale’ who look VERY intimidating but are actually really friendly and generally speak very good English. They mostly ask where we have been and where we are going and send us on our way…also another contributor to it taking forever to get anywhere.
So after the suggested 4 hours we arrived in Guaymas, in a place called San Carlos. The beach was across the street and we got a token for free margaritas on the way in! Our kinda place! We settled in, went for our free margaritas which were super strong and very good and ended up staying for food and of course more margaritas! It was so cheap, the margaritas worked out at 69p each, nearly made me blind they were so strong and the food (which was great fresh local seafood) cost less than £10.
We hung around at San Carlos for 2 nights and then headed a little further South into Guaymas itself and stayed in the carpark of a hotel built as a railway hotel in 1936. The hotel was very Spanish with its dark wood, high ceilings and huge traditional paintings. We met a couple there who made us a cactus omlette to try for breakfast and again we hit the road to Huatabampito…another 200 miles South.

The drive to Huatabampito was a long boring one. There is very little to see on the toll roads other than the odd cowboy herding his cattle across the road, a LOT of cactus and hundreds of eagles soaring above the brush. We passed a few vendors who seem to be in the middle of nowhere with their tables and chairs and a little portable griddle but no villages as such to report back on.
When we finally arrived we drove by several small shack houses all with someone sat outside seemingly with nothing to do but while away their time and turned off down a sand track as per the ‘Bible’ instructions. We pulled up actually ON the beach at a cute little RV stop in front of a little restaurant.

So excited we booked in, opened all the doors and windows and started to make lunch. Within imeasurable seconds the van was FULL of flies! I dont mean there were 3 flies in, I mean there were about 50! In Peggy! A very small space!!!! We tried not to let them get the better of us and Alex shooed them away as I made us Fajitas (which I had luckily prepared the fillings for earlier that morning) and we sat miserable trying to avoid eating flies with our lunch.
Lunch eaten and Alex jumped up and stated he had had enough, we were leaving! I managed to talk him out of it and suggested we shut all of the doors and windows except one and usher all of the flies out…or kill as many as we can! We set about this task with fervour, Alex with a fat leaflet as a weapon, me with the San Carlos news. After half an hour, alot of swearing, swiping and shooeing we had rid of them all! Goodness knows what the neighbours must have though we were doing! We sat down and tried to both cool and calm down. We took a walk on the flat beach that stretched for miles, watched the pelicans fish and collected shells. Once outside you could never guess there was a single fly anywhere and we walked for miles and wondered at the unfinished houses, empty shacks and randomly dotted beach front restaurants.
When we got back to camp we bumped into the neighbours. They were from America and spend 2 months there a year over Christmas. I was shocked at this because the facilities were VERY basic and there seemed to be nothing nearby but they loved it! (they did have a big rig with its own shower, 50 inch TV etc) They invited us to join them for margaritas and dinner at the restaurant and we did. Alex ordered shrimp in garlic butter and was astounded when he got a plate of approximately 20 butterflied huge shrimp grilled to perfection and for £2.50!
Unfortunately (due to the flies) one night was enough at Huatabampito and we decided on an early start to get to Las Glorias, yet another beach front campsite! Can you see a pattern forming yet??? We know what we want and we wont stop until we find it! We know it is out there somewhere! We also want to get out into the real Mexico and meet some locals!

Find out what happens next on our traveling wedding adventure!